Lora Moser, who was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis when she was 2, said she had to stop taking a drug for the disease, Orkambi, because she could not afford the first month’s payment of more than $3,000 required by her insurer.

Richard Heelan, 70, last fall in the men’s homeless shelter on Bergen Street in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Its opening had been delayed by a legal battle, one of many obstacles the city has encountered in trying to open 90 shelters by 2022.

Cezin Nottaway, an Algonquin who runs a catering business, smokes moose meat using a method she learned from her grandmothers. She is part of a rising generation of Indigenous cooks and scholars trying to preserve and spread the food culture of their ancestors.